Axially symmetric rotating traversable wormholes

Abstract

This paper generalizes the static and spherically symmetric traversable wormhole geometry to a rotating axially symmetric one with a time-dependent angular velocity by means of an exact solution. It was found that the violation of the weak energy condition, although unavoidable, is considerably less severe than in the static spherically symmetric case. The radial tidal constraint is more easily met due to the rotation. Similar improvements are seen in one of the lateral tidal constraints. The magnitude of the angular velocity may have little effect on the weak energy condition violation for an axially symmetric wormhole. For a spherically symmetric one, however, the violation becomes less severe with increasing angular velocity. The time rate of change of the angular velocity, on the other hand, was found to have no effect at all. Finally, the angular velocity must depend only on the radial coordinate, confirming an earlier result.